The social construction of police heroes

AuthorJan Terpstra,Renze Salet
Published date01 March 2020
Date01 March 2020
DOI10.1177/1461355719868488
Subject MatterArticles
Article
The social construction of police heroes
Jan Terpstra
Radboud University, The Netherlands
Renze Salet
Radboud University, the Netherlands
Abstract
This article deals with the social construction of police heroes, an important, but often neglected aspect in police research.
The dramaturgical approach as developed by Goffman is used to understand how police heroes come into being and how
they can fall into disgrace. The social construction of the police hero is studied first by looking at the person of Buford
Pusser, a Tennessee sheriff in the 1960s and 1970s who has often been seen as the most famous American (police) hero.
From the dramaturgical perspective three different patterns can be distinguished that can contribute to the instability of
police heroism and that can result in the fall of the hero into disgrace. Finally, it is suggested that social meaning and
practices of police heroism are highly dependent on their cultural context.
Keywords
Police, heroes, social construction, police imagination, Buford Pusser
Submitted 02 Jul 2019, accepted 02 Jul 2019
Introduction
Presumably, there are not many police officers who have
received as much honour as a public hero as Buford Pusser
(1937–1974). Between 1964 and 1970, Pusser was the sher-
iff of McNairy County in southern Tennessee (and con-
stable in the same area). At least four films, a TV series,
one TV film, three books, dozens of (mainly country and
western) songs and many documentaries
1
have been made
about him, and an annual festival. In a museum devoted to
Pusser (based in his former house in Adamsville, Tennes-
see) many souvenirs can be bought that keep alive
the memory of this hero, such as coffee cups, key rings,
T-shirts, caps and baseball bats.
Initially, Pusser acquired fame as a result of his fight
against illegal whiskey distilleries, dubious gambling
houses, shady motels, prostitution, extortion, robbery and
other types of crime that were quite common in the poor
border regions between Tennessee and Mississippi, and in
the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in the 1950s and
1960s. The story goes that in his fights, Pusser had to deal
with criminal gangs with names such as the Dixie Mafia
and the State Line Mob. According to information from the
Pusser Museum, Sheriff Pusser succeeded in jailing about
7500 criminals and, in a period of just one year (1965),
cleared up 185 illegal whiskey stills.
2
In addition, Pusser owed his reputation to his unortho-
dox methods, which were not always in line with the law
and did not always follow the rules. That is the main reason
why he is (still) also known as Buford the Bull. He owed
this reputation as a persistent crime fighter to his height of
more than two metres and to the wooden stick that he used
in his fights with criminals and to clean up clandestine bars.
Even today, this is recognizable in the icon used by the
museum and local tourism: the silhouette of a giant man
armed with a stick.
Pusser’s status as a hero was reinforced because in his
fight against crime he faced many struggles and suffered
repeated personal misfortune and disaster. According to
information provided by the Pusser Museum, during the
Corresponding author:
Jan Terpstra, Radboud Universiteit Faculteit der Rechtsgeleerdheid, PO
Box 9049, Nijmegen, 6500 KK, Netherlands.
Email: j.terpstra@jur.ru.nl
International Journalof
Police Science & Management
2020, Vol. 22(1) 16–25
ªThe Author(s) 2019
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1461355719868488
journals.sagepub.com/home/psm

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